


Diana

by Spurlunk



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bonding, Gen, Ghosts, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spurlunk/pseuds/Spurlunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn quits X-Factor and works a shitty retail job until a chance encounter with Liam brings all five boys into a house that may be haunted by the ghost of a teenage girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diana

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by two tumblr posts: this one http://ihavea1dbloghelp.tumblr.com/post/69819158137/ and this one http://seramoon.tumblr.com/post/71466749152/. Also, thank you to the lovely Nav (scottymcchottie) for reading this over for me!

"Excuse me, do you carry batteries?"

"No, sorry, you can try the Tesco around the corner."

"I did already, couldn't get in. There's loads of people over that way, something must be happening."

Zayn shrugged, and the woman hmphed a little and went on her way, the bell above the door tinkling as it shut behind her. It was slow today, and Zayn was only halfway through his six hour shift.

"Hey, I'm going on my fifteen, yeah?" he called out. Matt, the only other person working today, was supposed to be filling the soda machine, but instead he seemed to be trying to figure out how many different flavors he could mix into one paper cup.

"Yeah, ok, but I'm taking mine when you get back," he replied. Zayn walked through the back and out the door into an alleyway, where he sat down on a wooden crate someone had tried to throw into the dumpster, but missed. It didn't smell or anything. He pushed his sleeves up to expose his tattoos - it was warmer outside than in the air conditioned shop. Zayn fumbled in his pockets until he found a pack of cigarettes and lit one up, leaning back against the wall and letting out a sigh. His neck hurt, the part where his shoulders started. It was probably because of the way he was always leaning against the counter when his feet got tired of standing. He rolled his head around to try to stretch it out, but it wasn't really helping.

A teenage boy came running down the street, and turned into the alleyway. He was looking behind him, and before Zayn could move out of the way, the boy had tripped over his boot and tumbled to the pavement with a thud. Zayn stood up and held out a hand.

"Hey, mate, you okay? Sorry about that, I didn't see you coming - "

"Could I borrow your jacket?"

"What?"

"Please?" he asked, and then it clicked, Zayn recognized him, it was Liam. Liam Payne, from One Direction. Liam clearly didn't recognize him however, and even though that was what Zayn had been going for when he changed his hair and clothing style, getting a bunch of tattoos all up and down his arms, he still felt a little pang of disappointment.

"Yeah, sure, okay," he said, shrugging off the black leather jacket he'd gotten from his sister's as a joint birthday gift last year and handing it to Liam, who pulled it on over his hoodie. Zayn became uncomfortably conscious of the ratty white v-neck T-shirt he'd been wearing underneath. He was pretty sure there was a hole in the back of it, near the hem.

"Thanks, mate. I owe you one," Liam said, grabbing Zayn in a quick handshake turned hug, and heading off down the alleyway, disappearing around the corner. Zayn sat back down to finish his smoke, but a crowd of about a dozen young preteen girls came screaming and clattering down, stopping when they saw him.

"Hi, did you see anyone go down this way just a minute ago?" one of them asked. The others giggled and chatted amongst each other excitedly, a little out of breath. Zayn shrugged, put out his cigarette with the toe of his shoe, and walked back inside. His fifteen minutes were up.

X

Zayn couldn't get the chance encounter with Liam out of his head. He'd been working to put the whole X-Factor thing past him. Yeah, he had given up on something big, missed out on a huge opportunity, but he had been trying to make that a positive thing. He wouldn't have been able to handle the pressure, and the fame. Now he could just work this shitty job as a cashier of a convenience store to pay the rent and still have plenty of time to work on both his music and his art. He played at a local coffee shop a few times, and he was working on getting admission to one of the art programs at a nearby university. He had just settled back into the normal rhythm of things when Matt dashed into the store, breathless, and nearly collapsed against the front counter.

"Zayn! You're not going to believe this," he said. Zayn put his phone back into his pocket to give Matt his full attention.

"What happened?"

"They're clearing out the whole street, apparently One Direction wanted to go shopping or something and they picked this block," he said.

"Why? All there is here is a Chinese take-out place and a bicycle repair shop."

"Maybe they're coming here." Matt said. He didn't know about Zayn's past, few people did. Right after X-Factor he'd get recognized in the street sometimes, but it had been three years and he'd grown out of the baby-faced kid who had been shy and awkward. Now he was a taller shy and awkward kid with tattoos, ripped jeans, and a green streak in his hair.

"Yeah. Because One Direction wants a stale donut and a bag of M&Ms."

"You're such a downer," Matt complained, pushing past him to go leave his bag in the back room. Then Zayn saw two familiar faces and resisted the urge to go hide as the door tinkled and Liam Payne and Niall Horan walked in. There were a couple of big guys with them, but they stayed outside, ostensibly guarding the door.

"Zayn! Hey, how are you, buddy!" Niall exclaimed, and Liam smiled.

"I'm, um, I'm good, how are you?" he said stupidly.

"I can't believe I didn't recognize you the other day, you look exactly the same," Liam said. He put the leather jacket Zayn had given him on the counter just as Matt walked out of the back room.

"Hey, Zayn, do you think that - holy shit." Matt said, stopping in his tracks and staring. Liam smiled at him.

"Hey, I'm Liam, this is Niall, we're just here catching up with our old friend Zayn," he said. Matt turned his stare to Zayn, who shrugged helplessly.

"I was on X-Factor but I quit before they made it big."

"You were in One Direction."

"Yeah. I guess."

"You worked here for almost six months and you didn't tell me you were in One Direction? Jesus, Zayn."

"Wait, if you didn't recognize me the other day how did you know who I was now?" Zayn asked Liam. He reached over and pulled back the collar of the leather jacket to expose the tag. 'ZAYN MALIK' was written on it with black marker.

"My mum must have done that last time I brought my clothes over there for her to wash," he said.

"That's adorable," Niall said in a fake-sweet voice.

"Shut up," Zayn said, falling right back into the rhythm of their easy banter. He'd always gotten along with Niall, he was like the little brother he'd never had, a little tail-wagging puppy who wanted to play all the time.

"We're in town till next week, if you want to hang out or something," Liam said.

"I work most days, I don't know - " Zayn started, but Matt interrupted him.

"I can cover for you, don't worry about it. Go have fun," he said.

"Now?"

"Sure! I'm hungry," Niall said.

"Give me a minute," Zayn said, disappearing in the back room. He got his things, put his jacket on, and clocked out before he had time to change his mind.

"See ya, Zayn, have fun!" Matt said, with a face that told Zayn that he wanted to be told everything tomorrow when he came back into work.

"Thanks, yeah," he said, following Niall and Liam out of the store. They went to a small burger place and after a few minutes of pictures and autographs, they were left alone to eat their fries in peace.

"So what have you been up to, Zayn?" Liam asked, stealing one of Niall's fries even though he had his own plate right in front of him.

"Not much. Working, writing, sketching," he said, taking a gulp of soda.

"Oh yeah? That's cool. I always liked your art," Liam said. Zayn didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything, eating silently.

"I suppose you know what we've been up to."

"Recording an album, going on tour, selling out, making fans all over the world, yeah," Zayn said, unable to help the bitterness of his tone.

"It's fun, but it'd have been great to have you with us too."

"Too late for that, but it's alright. I'm doing fine here. I got my own place and everything," Zayn said.

"Can we see?" Niall asked.

"Can you see what?"

"Your flat. Is it around here?" Niall asked. Zayn would have thought that Niall was implying something more, but this was Niall. If he wanted something, he'd just ask.

"Yeah, it's close. You can see it, I guess."

Once they finished eating, one of the big guys following the boys around opened the door of a black SUV for them, and they all climbed in. Zayn gave the driver directions, and they pulled up in front of his shabby building. He led the way to the third floor and fumbled for his key.

"The building looks nice," Liam said. Zayn snorted.

"Yeah, okay," he said. The paint on the walls was peeling, the stairs creaked, and even though he had his key in the lock, his front door was not opening. He gave it a final, hard, shove, and it creaked open. They all walked in and looked around - Zayn shoved a dirty dish into the sink and pushed away some trash. Niall was busy rummaging through Zayn's fridge and shaking his head at Zayn's food choices, but he didn't see Liam anywhere. Zayn walked over into the spare room - he called it his studio, even though he didn't really have that many art supplies or even an easel. Liam was standing by the window, staring at the mural on the wall.

"Did you do this?" he asked when he heard Zayn come in.

"Yeah, it's not very good, I'm probably just going to paint over it - "

"No! You can't do that, this is amazing. Like, it should be hanging on a wall at a museum amazing. Or it should be the backdrop of a photo shoot amazing. We should do that."

"Do what?" Niall asked, wandering in. He'd found a football somewhere and was bouncing it around, trying to look cool.

"Have a photo shoot with Zayn's art as the background." Liam said.

"You did that?" Niall asked.

"Yeah, but I don't want it hanging in a museum or anything like that - "

Liam's phone buzzed and he pulled it out to read a text, then let out a resigned sigh.

"We gotta go. We'll catch up later, yeah, Zayn? Give me your number, we'll call you."

X

Zayn didn't hear from Liam or Niall for the next few days, and after he'd gone back in to work and told Matt all about his outing and past with X Factor and One Direction, his life went back pretty much to normal. He was at his parents' house when he got the text, sitting on the couch with his sisters, fighting for foot space on the coffee table in front of the TV until their mom came in and told them to all get their feet off the table because she needed someplace to put the snacks. Zayn had a mouthful of delicious spicy samosa when his phone rang. He wiped his greasy fingers on his jeans and answered it, worried it might be something important. Most people just texted him nowadays.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Zayn? This is Liam. Liam Payne," he said, as if Zayn had a thousand Liams in his life.

"Yeah, hey. What's up?"

"We just got out of a meeting with our management, and they're worried about us as a group. We're not - things aren't working very well. We're supposed to be recording our new album, but we haven't been meshing really, it's kind of a mess. They're doing something a little different to get us out of the rut."

"What are they doing?"

"They've rented this big old house in the country, installed a recording studio, and they're kind of just leaving us to it. They think that if we all stay in the same place far away from everything we'll get inspired and work our issues out."

"Right, yeah," Zayn said, still not sure why Liam was telling him this. Waliyha was being really loud, and the TV was still on. Something was exploding. Which made no sense since they'd been watching a Gordon Ramsey show. Unless one of the chefs had blown up the kitchen. Zayn walked into the hallway, where it was quieter.

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with us."

"To a big empty house in the country? With all of you?"

"Yeah. You sing, you write songs. Maybe a fresh voice could help us. If you're worried about money, I can take care of that. Or I can get our label to take you on as a consultant or something, if you prefer."

"When - when are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow morning. I can come by and pick you up, we're going to leave at eight."

"Um. Alright," Zayn said. He wasn't sure what he was getting himself in to, but it didn't seem like he had much choice.

"Great! See you tomorrow then, right?"

"Right."

Zayn shoved his phone in his pocket and then sighed, pulling it right back out to text his manager and tell him he wouldn't be in for the next month. Hopefully he wouldn't get fired for leaving on such short notice. Then he'd have to tell his parents, he'd have to let Matt know, he'd have to pack - it was almost six in the evening! Zayn had a lot to do.

X

Zayn had forgotten what the boys could be like when they were all near each other. They were so touchy, all up on each other, and crowded in the (admittedly spacious) back seat of the SUV instead of choosing for one of them to sit up front with the driver. Harry was sitting at one end, his legs stretched out over all of their laps. Liam was squished on the other side, with Zayn and Louis in between. Niall was sitting on the floor. He didn't have to, they would have made room, but he was enjoying a little bouncy ball he had gotten from somewhere. It was the small kind, the kind that was light but if you threw it, it would bounce on every available surface and never stop. He kept throwing it at their heads, until Harry caught it and popped it in his mouth. Zayn reached over and put his hand by Harry's chin.

"Do you even want to know where that's been?" Liam said. Harry shrugged.

"I've put worse things in my mouth," he said, garbled but not enough for any of them to miss what he said.

"Have you, then?" Louis said, wiggling his eyebrows up and down. Zayn snorted and Harry laughed so hard the ball came out of his mouth without any more prompting. Zayn shoved it in his pocket and wiped his hands on Harry's pants.

"Hey!"

"What, it's your spit on your trousers, that's not weird."

"I don't know if any of us should be the final judge of what's weird and what's not."

"Hey Paul, can we stop for food, I'm hungry!" Niall said.

"You're always hungry."

"No, I'm hungry when I'm hungry!"

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Shut up Louis, I didn't ask you."

Then the boys were fighting, and since they were all basically on top of each other, Zayn got an elbow to the face and a kick to the stomach. He wasn't even sure if they were play-fighting or actually angry at each other. The driver pulled over to the side of the road and turned around.

"You five need to calm down. We're almost there, it's maybe another hour, and once we're there you can eat the whole damn fridge for all I care. Got that? I'm not gonna be the one responsible for crashing this car and killing all of One Direction in a fiery wreck, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"Niall, for Christ's sake, get off the floor. Harry, put on your seat belt. Come on."

The boys went through the motions of obeying, but as soon as Paul got back on the road, Niall went back to the floor and Harry let go of his seat belt, lying back against the seat and shutting his eyes. Zayn himself felt his eyes drooping. He'd stayed up late and gotten up early. Soon enough, he was fast asleep.

The car jerking to a stop woke them all up, and Zayn sat up straight, blushing a little as he realized he had fallen asleep on Liam's shoulder. He surreptitiously wiped his face to make sure he hadn't drooled. Liam  opened his eyes and gave him a sleepy smile. Zayn had to look away.

"Here we are," Louis said, shoving Harry off of him as they all got out of the car. They were at the end of a long driveway, leading presumably back to the road, but the house in front of them was huge. It looked very old, and there were three floors, maybe even an attic.

"This is all ours?" Niall said, looking up.

"For the next month, yeah. You boys are going to have to come up with something good, so get your things, go get settled, eat something, and get started. The studio's on the first floor. I won't be staying with you, but I'll be around if you need me. You're not to go into town, or cause any trouble. Don't kill each other."

Louis gave Paul the sweetest, most awful smile, and Paul just shook his head, turning to grab the bags and luggage out of the car. Zayn grabbed his bag and walked into the house behind Harry. It was furnished, but most of the things looked very old and dusty. He wondered who had lived here before they came. While the boys were looking around the kitchen and dining areas, Zayn went up the stairs, nearly catching his foot and tripping on one, and found four bedrooms. One of them would have to share, or sleep on the couch in the little den area. He put his things on the couch. He didn't feel like he really should be here, and it wasn't right to just claim one of the bedrooms before the others had even looked. He found a balcony at the end of the hallway, and let himself out. It didn't look very safe, but he decided to risk it. Being cooped up in that car for five hours was really getting to him. He needed a smoke.

Zayn felt through all of his pockets and couldn't find his cigarettes. Did he really forget to bring them? Ah well, he'd been meaning to quit anyway. He went back inside and found Liam standing in the hallway staring up at the ceiling.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"There's an attic up there, see the trapdoor? I'm not tall enough to reach it."

"Hold on," Zayn said, walking into the first bedroom he found and grabbing the wooden chair he found there. He put it on the floor and held it steady as Liam climbed up and grabbed the handle of the trapdoor. It came down with a ladder, and he went up. Zayn climbed up onto the chair when he'd gone, looking up into the hole. The creaking noises were worrying him. How stable was the attic?

"What's up there?" he called.

"Some boxes of junk. Newspaper clippings."

"Newspaper?"

"Yeah, hold on a second. Some kids' toys. Dolls. I think a little girl used to live here."

"Liam, I think you should come down from there," Zayn said. He was getting a bad feeling about this. A sudden rush of cold air, even though it was the middle of summer. He thought he heard a voice, and then suddenly the chair twisted beneath him and he fell to the ground with a clatter.

"Zayn? Are you okay?" Liam called, lowering himself back down the ladder. Zayn stood up, dusting himself off and righting the chair so that Liam could come down.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Must've just lost my footing. What did you find up there?" he asked. The other boys were coming up the stairs, they must have heard the noise. Liam went out into the den and spread out the newspaper on the table. It was old, but not old enough to turn yellow yet. The date was November 6th, 1983. There was a picture of a teenage girl, with curly blonde hair and a pretty face.

"What are you boys looking at?" Louis asked, and then all five of them were crowded around the table.

"Found this in the attic. Some girl disappeared here, in this house. Diana Johnson. Her sister saw the person she claims murdered her, and there's a description here - dark curly hair, thin, young, pretty for a boy. They never caught him, though."

"Sounds like you, Harry. Pretty and curly-haired," Niall said, chewing on a donut he'd gotten from somewhere.

"I'm not a criminal."

"Diana. It's a nice name." Liam said.

"Sad."

"Maybe her ghost still haunts this place. Boo!"

"Oh, shut up, Louis."

"Did you pick a room yet, Zayn?"

"No, I thought I could just sleep on the couch here, there's only four bedrooms - " he began.

"Oh, don't worry, Zayn, Harry'll bunk with me. We'll take the biggest room and you three can have the others."

"How generous." Liam said, and Zayn couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic. He grabbed his bags and in the flurry of commotion as the boys began to settle in, the newspaper was forgotten, kicked under the table.

They spent the rest of the afternoon kind of cranky and tired. Nobody really wanted to hang out, and Zayn spent most of his day reading comics on his laptop. He dozed off around sunset, and when he woke up, everything was very quiet. He wasn't used to being out in the country, without the constant low hum of traffic and other noises that reminded him he was in a city. Then he heard a low sobbing, a persistent cry that sounded like it was coming from somewhere really close. Was it one of the boys? Zayn stood up - he'd kicked off his shoes before flopping down on the bed, so his footsteps wear nearly silent as he walked down the hallway. All of the bedroom doors were open, and he saw that most of them were empty, except Niall was fast asleep on his bed. The others must be downstairs. But the crying was coming from closer than that.

Zayn found one door he hadn't opened, and turned the knob. It was locked, or stuck. He kicked it a couple of times and tried again. He opened the door to see a girl sitting on the toilet, her head in her hands.

"Who - who are you?" he asked. She raised her tear-stained face up at him, and he felt his heart almost stop beating in his chest. It was the girl from the newspaper.

"I'm Diana," she said.

X

By the time Zayn had coaxed Diana out of the bathroom and into the den, the other boys had come to see what was going on. Except Niall, who was still asleep.

"You're the dead girl." Harry said. Diana nodded. She looked a little thinner than her picture, and paler. But that was probably because she'd been dead twenty years. Zayn didn't know. He'd never met a ghost before.

"I've been in this house for ages and ages. At first it was alright because my family was still here and I could see them, but they left because the house reminded them of me too much. And then nobody was here, and it got so lonely. Sometimes it's too much, and I just sit and cry, I know it's pathetic."

"No, babe, it's not pathetic at all, anybody would get lonely in this big old house by themselves," Louis said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Except not really, because it went straight through and he put his hand in front of his face, stretching it, and then looking back at her.

"Guess she really is a ghost then." Liam said.

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!"

"Sorry. He's sorry. Do you know why you're a ghost? How come you haven't ... gone on?" Harry asked.

"I was killed. I didn't just disappear. They never found my body. I don't care about my killer. He'll be punished by God. I just want my body to be given to my family. When my sister was little, right after I was gone, I would watch her. She thought that I'd come back someday. I can't let her live with that false hope."

"We can help you," Liam said. Louis nodded.

"Yeah, I have sisters too, I know how it is. Just tell us what you need and we'll do our best."

Zayn got up and left the room. He went into his own and pulled open his laptop, quickly googling Diana's name to find out all he could about her. The whole 'there's a ghost in this creepy old house' was surprisingly easy for him to swallow, but he supposed after he got over the 'I'm hanging out with the members of an internationally famous boy-band in a big house in the middle of nowhere' idea, not much else was going to faze him.

About an hour later, Harry showed up in Zayn's room, plopping down stomach-first on the bed next to him. He poked at the keyboard and made robot noises until Zayn turned it off and moved to face him.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Diana's gone. She disappeared. She said she does that sometimes, can't help it. She'll be back. In the mean time, Liam told me you write songs."

"Yeah, I do, sometimes."

"Do you have any with you?" he asked.

"Sure, hold on a sec let me find them." Zayn said, getting up and rummaging through his bag to find his notebooks.

"Bring 'em down to the kitchen! Me and Niall're making dinner, we're gonna try to come up with a song tonight. The sooner we finish the sooner we can get back to London."

"And you want - my songs?" Zayn said, but Harry was already gone.

Dinner went better than Zayn thought it would. Liam seemed calmer now, they all meshed a lot better, bouncing ideas off of each other and writing down notes. Zayn had forgotten what this felt like, being with these four people, who even though he hadn't known them for very long he just felt so comfortable with. He even cracked a few jokes. Niall was like a little brother, cute and annoying. Harry was beautiful, sometimes Zayn thought he could have been a Renaissance painting, but he wasn't about to tell him that. Louis was a little irritating at first, but he was growing on Zayn, and Liam, well. Liam made Zayn feel warm in the pit of his stomach, a nice cozy feeling. Zayn felt like he belonged here. Not here in this house, but here with these four boys. The silliest, funniest, kindest boys, the ones who were fighting over whether forks went on the left or the right and the ones who were slapping each other's hands away when they tried to sneak a carrot out of the salad before it had been served. Zayn put his notebook inside his jacket before it got juice spilled on it.

Harry took the scarf out of his hair and used it to make a fancy flourish towards the table.

"Gentlemen? Dinner is served. Bon appétit!"

"Isn't it bon voyage?"

"No, that means good journey."

"Niall, seriously? Voyage? It's in the name!"

"I don't speak French I know Spanish!"

"I know some Arabic."

"Good for you Zayn."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Pass the salad or I'll climb over you to get it."

"Maybe."

"HARRY GET OFF ME!"

"Pass the salad!"

"Oh my god."

Liam caught Zayn's eye and gave him a look like 'see what I have to deal with?' and Zayn smiled at him with a small shrug. He reached over Louis, Harry and Niall's flailing limbs and plucked the salad bowl out of their way, serving himself and then passing it on to Liam.

"Cheers," he said, and they clinked glasses. It was a full five minutes before the others realized that they were fighting over nothing, but after that it was a pretty enjoyable meal. Harry was a good cook, but it might just have been that food eaten with friends tasted better than the food Zayn cooked alone in his apartment. He almost forgot why he'd decided to leave X Factor in the first place.

X

Zayn couldn't sleep. It was probably because he'd been napping on and off all day. There wasn't much to do in this house when they weren't working on new music, and they'd already recorded three songs. Everyone wanted a break, and Zayn had retreated to his room for some alone time. He'd already sketched every single one of the boys, some of them multiple times (he was embarrassed to admit to himself which boy's drawings numbered more than any other's, even to himself), and he'd read all the comics he'd brought with him. He'd watched some TV on his laptop, and then he'd slept. Now it was nearly midnight and here he was, wide awake with nothing to do. He decided to go see if anyone else was up, and found Louis in the hallway, on his knees rapping on floorboards.

"What are you doing?"

Louis looked up quickly, and put his hand over his heart.

"Jesus, Zayn, you scared me! I'm looking for Diana's body."

"We haven't seen her in days. I was beginning to think I'd imagined her."

"What she said about her sister, it stuck with me. I can't get it out of my head. Her body has to be somewhere in this house, or else she would have gone away when her family moved."

"You're trying to find out if any of the floorboards are removable. Hollow."

"I know it's a long shot."

"I'll help you. Did you check the walls too? Or the balcony?"

"Not yet."

"I'll do that." Zayn said.

"Thanks, man," Louis replied, looking up at him. Zayn couldn't really see much of him except his eyes, sparkling in the dark.

"No problem. I'm up anyway," he said, and knocked lightly on the walls as he walked down the hall. He made his way to the balcony and examined the ground and walls. Nothing special.

"Hey, Louis," he whispered as he came back into the hallway.

"What?"

"Liam went up into the attic for a few minutes but he didn't really look around that much. Wanna check it out?"

Louis nodded. Zayn cupped his hands and put them out for Louis to step in. He gave him a boost just enough to pull down the ladder to the attic, and then he climbed in. Zayn jumped a little, and his fingers grazed the bottom rung. He tried again and made it, hauling himself up and into the small room. They couldn't stand, the ceiling was too low. The floor looked half-rotted, and there were a few dusty boxes in the corner. Zayn went to examine those, while Louis scooted around to the other side of the room.

"Zayn! There's a closet here. You can't tell, but - " he said, grunting a little with effort as he pushed something aside. There was a clatter as a piece of flat wood fell to the floor with such force for a minute Zayn thought that the attic would give way beneath them.

"D'you have a light?" he asked. Zayn pulled out his phone and handed it to Louis, who held the screen up to the little gap in the wall he had found.

It was a body. Old and dusty enough to be nearly unrecognizable as much more than a skeleton, but there were clothes, and they looked just like the ones Diana the ghost was wearing.

"Holy shit," Zayn whispered.

"It's Diana."

X

They woke up the others and called the police. They didn't have much choice in the matter. Louis was shivering a little, Harry found him a hoodie and went down to the kitchen to make some hot chocolate. Zayn wasn't sure what he felt. He'd never seen a dead body before, not like that. She was only a little younger than he was. The police ripped apart the attic to get her out, since they couldn't all fit up there. There were sirens and statements to be made and Paul coming over there as fast as he could manage, and somewhere in there Liam held Zayn's hand under the table and Zayn rested his head on his shoulder, not even caring.

Diana's family came in for the funeral. They invited all of them to come along, and Louis asked if he could give Diana's sister, now in her forties with a wife and kid, a big hug. She agreed, and laughing while she was crying, said she wasn't sure if she was happy that her kid (a six year old girl) was getting to meet her idols, One Direction, or sad that these were the circumstances they were seeing each other in.

"I always told myself she'd come back, but I guess I knew she wouldn't. It's nice to have closure."

"We - we were thinking of writing a song about her," Zayn blurted out.

"We were?" Niall said, and Liam kicked him.

"If you don't mind, that is. We don't want to disrespect your sister's memory." Liam said.

"No, of course! I'm so touched that you would consider that! She would have loved it."

Zayn and Liam shared a grin, and then they walked down to the gravesite with the others. Zayn thought he saw a blonde haired girl behind a tree, but when he looked again she was gone. Maybe Diana was finally free. There was a thump of dirt as the diggers started burying the coffin.

"You know you're stuck with us now, right?" Liam whispered into Zayn's ear. He looked around him, to Harry and Louis sitting impossibly close to each other and Niall fiddling with his shirt cuffs. He was filled with a rush of affection for them, and he realized that it wasn't new. He'd felt it all along, he just hadn't admitted it to himself before now.

"Yeah. I'm alright with that."

Liam grinned and Zayn smiled back until Diana's mother let out a sob and then they both remembered that they were at a funeral so maybe this should wait till later.

_Let me be the one to lift your heart up and save your life,_  
 _I don't think you even realize baby you'd be saving mine._

 

 


End file.
